Skip to main content
Participant
May 7, 2018
Question

Keywords not syncing to Lightroom Mobile

  • May 7, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 3703 views

Why don’t keywords added to images in Lightroom Classic sync with Lightroom Mobile?

Rick McEvoy

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

    2 replies

    Participating Frequently
    February 20, 2025

    I think I found a solution!!  The latest version of Lightroom Classic doesn't sync keywords even once anymore, and I tried everything I could think of to work around this huge problem.  After all, what is the use of having 50,000 images at your fingertips if you can't find what you're looking for?  Try this:  Open Lightroom Classic.  Open LR on your desktop as well.  Physically drag and drop images from Classic to LR.  Voila!  All your keywords will be there.  No, they don't sync, but that's ok with me.  Good luck!!

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 20, 2025

    What this does is upload the original to Lightroom, and so the original will be synced to the cloud! You'll soon run out of cloud space if you have the 20GB plan...

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 7, 2018

    Because Adobe decided not to support that.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    johnrellis
    Legend
    May 7, 2018

    To build on JohanEl54's response, when LR 7 was released, Adobe said it didn't intend to add any more enhancements to sync between LR Classic (desktop) and CC (cloud).  A lot of users obviously disagree, but not so many as to induce Adobe to change their mind (at least not yet).

    Please continue this discussion and add your constructive opinion to this topic in the official Adobe feedback forum: Lightroom mobile: Keywords don't sync from mobile to Classic | Photoshop Family Customer Community . Be sure to click Me Too and Follow in the upper-right corner -- that will make it a tiny bit more likely Adobe changes this decision and notify you if they do.

    April_W
    Participating Frequently
    October 2, 2018

    The problem that I'm having is that Lightroom Desktop used to sync keywords to Lightroom Mobile with no problem, but now it only syncs every once in a while. It's very inconsistent, so I can never tell if it's going to sync or not, or why it's not syncing. I tried to troubleshoot it, thinking it didn't like the format of my keywords - sometimes they're just numbers, other times it's a combination of letters and numbers - but there's no rhyme or reason as to when and why it syncs one day and not the next.

    It's so frustrating when you have 45,000+ images that are shared by a team. I work in the apparel industry, and tag images by style number, or season, or both, after we return to the office from a studio shoot. Another team member logs into Lightroom.com to rate the images, essentially making a selection for what images will be used for marketing a particular style. When they're unable to find the images for a particular style number, I have to scroll through thousands of images in Lightroom Mobile, and create multiple albums by style number just so they can review them. I can assure you that takes up a lot more space than allowing keywords to sync to Lightroom Mobile.

    Adobe, we need resolution soon on this, or we'll be forced to look for an alternative to Ligthroom, and believe me, there are plenty of them available! Top 10 Best Lightroom Alternatives in 2018